Long night, White Night

Melbourne threw its own Nuit Blanche. I think this whole world's most liveable city affair has kind of gone to its head. Australian culture dictates that a night out must must must involve booze, lest it be labelled a waste and gay. My charming countrypeople! So what started out as a bright evening of culture and jazz dissolved, by about 3 or so AM, into a distopian day-night with tumbleweeds of empty vodka bottles, Pie Face wrappers and abandoned shoes. I wish I'd taken a picture of the bottle-o because it was empty. I mean it; spirits gone, two little miniature bottles of bourbon arranged thoughtfully on the middle shelf.

 

Aiie, but I am being negative. My own White Night was... multi-faceted. That has to be the word. Highlight of highlights: I saw Cent une tueries de zombies (have a look if you don't mind the gore). 101 zombie deaths cleverly edited into 40-something glorious minutes. Not for the faint of heart. (They even included my favourite zombie death, but be warned: this video is graphic.) I also got to see Flap!, the very best live outfit in Melbourne, perform, which was excellent as always. They have this way with an audience; it's hard to describe. Every time I've seen them (and I admit, there have been a few) it takes about three songs for them to win the crowd completely over. You know the kind of person you don't actually know, but feel close to and want to buy a pony for? That's this band. They're good value folks.

After the zombies and the music it was getting towards that eerie stage I told you about. I'd said goodbye to J and IMJ (soft!) and just sort of wandered. Things get very strange for me when I'm low on sleep. I don't remember much, but I have distinct memories of trying to walk toe-heel instead of heel-toe. What can I say? In the immortal words of Honey Boo Boo Child, girl's gotta get her beauty sleep.

I resurfaced at 6am, ate too much breakfast (cold scrambled eggs, bleagh) and went home, then to work. Probably should have had a lie-down beforehand; probably shouldn't have drunk six espresso shots in half an hour. Was it all worth it? You know, I think so.

 

Eternal Brunchtime of the Constant Dine

I figured that, after quitting my jobs (oh joy! oh bliss!) I'd have time to do all sorts of things I used to enjoy; you know, sleeping and smiling and breathing. But -- my God, and I never thought I'd say this -- being a Lady Who Lunches (my ultimate career goal, no lies) is damn hard work. Not only have I had to brush my hair, but I've been flat out, going from one cafe to the next. In the last week, I've had more flat whites than I've seen in a season.

It's been so lovely to see everyone. I didn't realise I had so many sensational people in my life until I started saying goodbye to them. I didn't realise how much I'm leaving behind, really. It must be that cliche of leaving and appreciation and lack thereof.

It still doesn't feel real. I suppose it will when I'm being rained on in Hyde Park -- ooh, actually, writing that gave me a bit of a chill -- or being rained on at Portobello rd, or even being rained on in BHS as I try to piece a life's worth of linen together.

Thanks to the magic of scheduling, it's exactly (exactly) a week until I leave. And once I'm over there, I'll have lots of exciting things to say. How thrilling! See you then, if not sooner.

Sarah Illenberger's watermelon

 

Get your act together, please

Well, it's a month exactly today. And not even a good, long month; February, the Tuesday of the year. Sort of eerie to think that, at almost exactly now in a month, I'll be twitching about, sleepless and anxious, chasing up the thousand loose ends that will doubtless appear the moment before I move to London. Damn, the closer it gets the more I'm sure something unexpected with eventuate and it'll all collapse and never happen. It seems like too big a thing to happen to me.

What's been going on in the interim?, I hear you shout. Well, stunningly little. Hate my job. If I didn't know I was quitting so soon I'd quit. (They don't know I'm leaving, by the way. Terrible me!) Honestly, the sight of anything in the bread bin at home makes me very uncomfortable. A bakery has to be the worst place for a person terrified of burns and disgusted by mornings to work.

With most of my Serious Travel Things (visa, flights, job, home) taken care of, I'm happy to procrastinate through the rest and spend my off-time watching TV. We don't even have Netflix in Australia, you know, so I'm at the mercy of whatever's on. Sometimes this is great (Bargin Hunt, QI, Poirot) and sometimes this is dreadful (My Kitchen Rules). All this QI, incidentally, hasn't been helping my Alan Davies stress dreams. (They're awful. I wake up in a panic because I don't have enough money to buy that wretched farm in Kent he pushed on me, or because I've forgotten to fill in that form he needed. It's bizarre. I must associate him with England or something.)

All this rambling, aside from beng demonstrative of my current state of mind, is my way of announcing that I'm back. I'm back, and I'm getting my act together (maybe).

A quiet moment

Dropping in (to my own blog, hm) to let you know that I'm going to take a moment off from blogging. I know that this is such a scummy thing to do -- not to mention atrocious timing seeing as my blog is, well, basically brand new -- but I just don't have the energy or content. I don't want to create rubbish for you; I want to write quality, and if I can't then I see no point in continuing. Recently, I've been working two jobs, trying to sort out my visa, university, the old, uh, move 20,000-odd kms away... It's taxing. I hope to be back by mid-Feb at the latest with more WitW (do you actually like that?), moving to London things, photographs of buildings and maybe even nnneeeewwww cccooonnttteeeennttt (substitute in your own wiggly fingers and ghost accent). In the meantime, here are pictures of great actresses with ravens from my Pinterest.

See you soon!